tv Going Underground RT January 14, 2023 12:30am-1:01am EST
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guided by powerful corporations and institutions like nature, the i m f, the w cio and blocks like the u, as accompanied, one catastrophe after another. and so today we see the threat of armageddon from climate change disease and perhaps a war in europe to really end all wars. this while a miniscule global elite gets richer and richer, the new book argues that crises can lead to salvation by so called public private partnerships in bremar, president of eurasia groups. the power of crisis at 3 threats and our response will change the world, joins me now from new york city. thank you so much and for coming on, i better ask before i even get into the book, what the reaction is because the world is arguably in a more imminent crisis, sir, than when you are perhaps writing the book. and given that you are saying crisis, can harold, the salvation army? who's been reading this? oh, look, i had some quite well and i, i wonder, you know, i consider myself an a b person. but most of my books have been a little depressing. because the world has been geopolitically,
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at least heading in a much more challenging direction. this is more hopeful book. and i think in port a strong reaction has been in part because policy makers are looking for that, especially as the grappling with different crises. we've seen that from the un secretary general, we saw that just the other day, i saw that president, the war bank said this was his favorite book from 2022. that was, that was that certainly nice and startling to see i'm so brilliant across the political while it's so pretty good so far. and the course, i presume you'll then be persuading them of some of the action that needs to be taken, which you do talk about in, in the book one, a one paragraph. i think the did the shock me a little was when you said the u. s. remains the only nation that can protect or project political, economic, cultural, and military power into every region of the world. do you think that's still true in the light of what's been happening since the publication of the book and what is seen in the global south as a realignment and less so arguably in media,
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in nato nations? oh no, i think it's more true today. it's more true oh with the russian. ready war and the europeans getting more on nato because they understand they can't protect themselves. it's more true. in the aftermath of a failed, 0 copeland policy, the in china and the likelihood that hundreds of thousands, not millions of chinese are going to die as a lead coven. rip there, but that doesn't mean that america's power translates into other countries wanting to follow the united states doesn't translate into alignment, and it doesn't translate into the willingness on the part of the united states to play that leadership role. so those are, i mean, the fact that the americans remain the one global superpower in terms of the role of us dollar. the. ready role of the american military, the tech companies, and all the rest that, that doesn't get you resolution of the world's crises,
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not at all. and i should just add those china would deny that. so many people are going to die. in fact, they would probably draw attention to the fact 25000 people having died from cove it. and what is it a 1000000 dead in where you're speaking to me? and i suppose i should remind our audiences that the crisis. so essentially, 3 strands in the book of climate crisis, the pandemic crisis, and, and war. and she's in paying a said russia and china are the top responsible global powers. that's what he said last february. what do you, what do you make of the alliance between russia and china and bricks? the sam icon, the shanghai cooperation organization meeting and the fact that most of the world is not supporting sanctions on russia. well, you're right. first of all, the developing world is not supporting sanctions on russia. and that's because there's a lot of hypocrisy,
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the americans and europeans are doing an enormous amount to defend the ukrainians to punish the russians. but how much would they care if this was a country outside of europe? it was in sub saharan africa was in south asia. and certainly if you're india, if you remember the breaks, if you're in the global south, you feel like the americans, europeans are very hypocritical in which human rights abuses and which abuses of self determination sovereignty. they choose to make a top priority at the same invasion that happen in sub saharan africa. immediately the west, like we call for a cease fire, they wouldn't be saying that the ukrainians get to make the decision of when they should negotiate and get as much support as possible. of course, when it comes to china, the chinese do not have an alliance with russia. they have a strategic partnership back in february, 3rd, or 4th. of course, several weeks before the war started. the chinese didn't say publicly should change it on the global stage. that his relationship with russia was a global friendship without limits. he's not repeated that since the war has
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started and he wouldn't. and the idea that they're best friends on a global stage. well, certainly the chinese have backed away from that. and what that shows you is that has made an enormous misjudgement. it is precisely that crisis that has the power of strengthening nato, of aligning the g 7 of building american military leadership with its allies all over the world. and has made effectively made russia and made, put it into a pariah on the international stage. that's why i didn't even show up at the g 20 summit in bali. it's why he decided to cancel his annual press conference that goes on for hours and hours. we don't, we don't know the reasons for that. and in june on the changing thing, reiterated his support or mutual support for russia and where do you think, who's buying the russian energy resources a discounted prices,
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presumably to fund the war? i'm not sure. i know just china, india as well, a friend of the united states and acquired by even more russian oil right now, the chinese are, there's no question when it comes to their economic well being. the developing countries are going to do what they think is in their own interest, much as the americans have been seen to do that over the past decades. but do you think, i mean, i suppose i should ask why, for a star as your intimating, they want to attack russia through through ukraine in this way. they would have called, as you say, a cease fire if it was in some african country why they want to do this. and also whether it is notable that in the think tanks of washington, amongst policy one that they want to split russia and china up here. but again, in the game, there is evidence to show that that, that they are binding together and increasing their alliances. i know you don't want to call in alliance, but of course again, no forbidden areas of cooperation and other synonym would arguably be alliance.
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they seem to be cementing even closer ties with the middle east, where i'm speaking to you from let alone in africa. and of course in latin america and southeast asia. i don't call an alliance because the chinese are very clear that they don't want it to be called in alliance, that they don't want to be called upon to defend the russians from ukrainian attack from nato. attack your right that in washington, of course, there's a strong desire to try to divide russia from china. and the chinese have told she's in thing is told by them these told the european leaders as well. but that's not going to happen. that's not going to work because the chinese feel like they've been contained to a degree by the united states and their allies and asia, in the same way that russia has felt contained by the americans and europeans in their backyard in your asia and in europe. so the world views are actually aligned from a strategic perspective. the problem is that bruton has made this really horrible
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mistake and you know, when you talk about, well, who so interested in defending the ukrainians are trying to attack the russians. the fact is that the russians invaded ukraine back in 2014, with their little green men. and for 8 years they largely got away with european heads of state. we're happy to travel to moscow and celebrate the russian world cup back when the russians were occupying ukraine. the sanctions were limited. there were lots of, there were lots of signals that were being delivered to directly from the west. that nato was getting weaker and more divided that ukraine wasn't a priority. and if they could kind of do what they want, then when, when biden pulled out of afghanistan. and that was such a disaster for all sides after 20 years of war. you know, who was clearly thinking when the americans don't want any part of this. so, so if we attack ukraine, no one's going to care. was it bad, or since 2014 huge domestic pressure in russia to do something about the killing of
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thousands of people in don't best buy nato armed ukrainian troops. and what do you make of angular merkel? the former german chancellor saying that the minsky chords ratified you insecure council resolution to, to 02000000 attempt to give you credit time. and that always, the idea was to force a war with russia through ukraine. seem to be the implication of what i got to merkel was saying was all alive the means could cause the un resolution, the thousands. of course, the 13000 people that have died in the don boss are not russians. they are russians, and ukrainians, and numerous crimes were being committed on the ground as that war was going on. that's ukrainian territory has been ukrainian territory since 991. it was voted on, of course it was sovereignty. the russian signs of budapest man memorandum with the americans in the u. k. that promised to defend ukrainian territorial integrity. the
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russians then chose to unilaterally abrogate that. now, you are absolutely correct that there were a lot of signals that were being provided to the russians over the months and the lead up to the war that no one would do very much. if the russians invaded, that was an enormous judgment on the part of it. and now he is stuck with a military that's functioning very badly, a war that's enormously costly and unpopular. a nato that has expanded a ukraine that has been invited to join the european union. and of course, russia that has been completely decoupled from the advanced industrial economies of the world. the danger here is that there's no way back to put. there's no way to bring the russians back to business as usual. that's just inconceivable in this environment. so it does make life much more dangerous. indeed, especially for the europeans who are going to have to pay the additional defense expenditure. they're gonna have to pay for the higher cost of energy and other inputs that the industrialization and of course,
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we're going to have to deal with russia that feels humiliated and will be engaged in asymmetric proxy wars against nato, from one state or another of you could be using your book and the idea of crisis catalyzed thing, new in a very diverse solutions that europe is a dying continent now. and that, in fact, most of the world does not see brookins invasion in quite that light and actually sees it as a catalyst for a new world order. one in which we see nations across the global south scrambling to join bricks, bricks, banks. i know you mentioned in the book, bricks banks, the shanghai cooperation organisation, or variously described as a new type of nato, although they don't like to say it themselves. in fact, what putin has done is to speed up history and show that europe, especially given it's now total reliance on a l. n g fact gas from the united states. it's an opening of coal fired stations in
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stock, contrast to call per $26.00 environmental obligations. europe is finished because of what bruton has done and the united states. if anything, we'll seek to make alliances depending on what happens in washington. with these new global south entities. i'm very glad that you raised the point of winners and losers from the war because of course, it is very significant. the biggest losers on the back of the russian invasion of ukraine is of course, the developing world. because the europeans have the money to buy the energy from other places to buy the food by the fertilizer. who are the countries that are hit hardest by these supply chain disruptions? again, russia, ukraine are some of the largest food producers and exports. fertilizer produces exports in the world. of course, it's not the europeans, it's the poor countries that always take it in the teeth on the back of the christ . so after the pandemic with interest rates going up, and now the russia ukraine war, meaning that you're going to have so much more global starvation in the poorest
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countries of the world. because the russians invaded ukraine, and the americans and europeans should do a lot more to provide aid to these countries. and yet what we've seen is that they're searching in their pockets, and they're finding mostly lent they're not doing enough for these countries. and the developing world is very angry about it, so there is going to be a growing gap between the west and the south. as a consequence of that, just as you saw on the aftermath of the cop 27 climate summit in sharma shake. just as you saw when the indians beg the americans for even one plane load of vaccines their friends, the americans. when the americans already had a booster shots and the american said no, sorry, we're not going to provide that so very understandable disappointment on the part of the south. but to say that the europeans are the big losers. know it's the poor countries in the world that are getting the short end of the stick that's happening from climate. it's happening from the financial crises. and of course it's happening from the rush crane war. that is the true tragedy of what this war has
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meant to the world and bremar. i'll stop you there more from the president. if you raise your group, an author of the power of crisis have 3 threats, and our response will change the world after this break. ah, ah . so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy confrontation, let it be an arms. race is often very dramatic, development only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful. it's very difficult time. time to sit down and talk more when i was showing wrong,
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when i just don't know, i mean you have to shape out this thing becomes the advocate and engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look for common ground. ah, welcome back to going undergrad. i'm still here with the in bremond, the president of your age, your group, and author of the power crisis. you're claiming that the ukraine war is catalyzing, starvation in the developing world. so might argue that actually it is the international monetary fund, many the organization that you see as part of the salvation in your book, out of this, these crises, whether be the w t o, the world bank, you mentioned that they had the world bank. presently,
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i know their policies have changed over decades. it is they that have starved the global south. i'm sure you read confessions of an economic hit man explaining how they do it. the 40 coups in 50 years by the united states. in fact, the, in countries that you mentioned, you write about climate problems. syria wasn't at the united kingdom in the united states, funding al qaeda and i, sister, el salvador wasn't at the united states wanting death squads. guatemala was moved the legacy of the las ku, in 1993 in on doris, to see a coo, 2009 against layer. why do you not mention the fact that so much of this is to do with u. s. policy not simply to do with climate change or to do with her. well, you're saying the starvation is suddenly going to be appearing, or exacerbated in the global. so what are they just saying? a course of course look within the united states has been responsible for cruise historically. i can't even reach that. no,
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some of the ones you mentioned weren't very recent, frankly, but, but nonetheless, 1993 for guatemala, 2009. i mentioned venezuela in the book. they were told i will throw my doro, i'm very happy to go. i'm not trying, i'm not sure. i mean, i don't find confessions of an economic hit man to be very compelling. but i do find the history of american and european colonialism and neo colonial isn't to be very compelling and not, not a ha treated anyone should be proud of. and not one that should be obscured, but we need to understand that over the last 50 years, there has been the creation of a global middle class. the emerging markets around the world have economically outperformed. that, that you've created more educated elites in these countries, more urban ization, life expectancy has increased dramatically well beyond anything they've ever seen in history. that's largely been successful. but if you look at the human development index from the united nations in the last 3 years,
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they've actually turned around that. now you're not seeing a strengthening of a global middle class. you're seeing a weakening of the global middle class. you're seeing more poverty, you see more refuge, i'm sorry, and most of those figures are hugely distorted by the fact the chinese communist party 1800000000 out of poverty. and that's why overall you see that average increasing surely. i mean it's, it's, i know there is increase just, i mean, of course, a chinese or are this what have been the single largest beneficiary of globalization because of the size of their economy. and now 1400000000 people. but if you look at our world and data, the work done by max roeser and at oxford, if you look at facts on this by hands rosley, and you look at the trajectories of all of those developing countries over the last 50 years, you look at them on a scatter plot, it's not just the china storage has been the most extraordinary piece of it. no question. but it's been all over the developing war. no offense enough as to the
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scholars, but gaily they won't be counting the what? 40000, some people estimate killed by us sanctions on venezuela. let alone what we know the numbers across the world. of course they're looking at it now. 8000000000 people on aggregate. i mean, i, i can find horrible anecdotes for you, but if you're talking about development in the world, you're of course, talking about a global middle class. you're talking about humanity as a whole. now of course, climate change got vastly worse over the course of and so is short. termism, i'm in, in the benefits of economic development is also meant encroachment and a lack of biodiversity. it's meant more pandemic because human beings are coming into greater contact with wildlife. it's now $1.00 degrees centigrade of warming, that's going to head put $2.00, that's also going to be on the back of the poorest, not on the back of the wealthy. so there are big trade offs that come from short termism of industrialization and exploitation of the economy. that's true. but if you just want to look at human development in the world over the last 50 years,
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it's not principally a story of imperialism and war. it's principally a story of fewer wars and a much greater education of much greater innovation and of course, of much greater explosion of wealth of the average person on the planet. but some of those countries would say that i was in spite of that the increase in decrease in the middle class. and of course, in terms of innovations, i was saying basic innovation is on the decline over the past 50 years now to be professor danny dueling at the oxford university. i suppose one question here is that you do seem to privilege in the book, the narratives that have been propagated by media in nature, nations, on and on. you seem to be buying into a sort of quasi nazi like we go massacre narrative in jin chang, do you really believe that the china, china is massacring or putting into concentration camps muslims in china? oh, only about a 1000000. and you believe that because we've, we've invest,
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if you can't, you know, we see we've seen, of course, we've seen the documents that have been leaked from the chinese communist party. we've seen very significant work done by the b, b, c and the guardian and the new york times and many others. of course, the chinese don't have a free press and so you're not going to get that level of political scrutiny internally. and just on the, on the we've got point on the weak point. yes, it's not so much that we struck us on movement. it's a fact that they've been exposed as lying about evidence that there were a 1000000 people. and in fact, un recognizes that, let alone, obviously the chinese, a thing for foreign minister wang e, there is never been circle genocide, force label. i saw a report that was delivered by michelle boshoway on the last day of her being the united nations human rights envoy commissioner. and of course, that was done specifically because everyone understood how upset the chinese would be about the release. but it was a courageous thing for the united nations. do i understand the intervention and you
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believe that's been over written by further you in remarks by spokespeople. but the guardian, the b, b, c, these outlets. the ones famously of course that said that there was w m d in iraq. what is the role of media i w, m, d, in iraq, and in fact, the audio recorded the war. there may be interesting in the, in can i work with a, b, b, c today? probably around. sorry, i shit you like. well, i do, i'm really, i'm glad to hear that. but i mean, i'm not going to stand here and justify american war into iraq over fake intelligence. and indeed, i heard from many times, from people that have been, you know, from the kremlin, right. you, you, one of the justifications for the ukraine war is that there, well, if the americans are going to lie about w. m d and rocket country, it doesn't even matter to them then. who cares if we lie about genocide being
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committed against what we're going to call a nazi regime in ukraine? i think that when pollutants says there's no such thing as truth. there's no such thing is true, that's what we make of it. i mean it, that is, you know, this philosophical re, our policy that is put in is trying to use to justify that his behaviors are no worse and have no more right to be judged by the international community than those of the americans. i fundamentally reject that, but i understand that many acts in american history have gone a significant way to allow authoritarian dictators with no interest in human rights to use those arguments for their own purposes. it's certainly true. know the thing is true, that was don rumsfeld, i thought, or is it right to be approved on the on i don't know exactly what a obviously. no, no, no, no, i'm happy to hear the quote that would be useful. no, no, i'm joking with the fact because donald rumsfeld famously equivocated over answering questions about the iraq war, the yeah,
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i like to quote on the things that you don't know you don't know. i mean that's, that is close to philosophical. it's kind of existential. there isn't, nobody truly knows what's going on, but it's not quite what puts it on the i haven't actually had that bruton quote on the climate change crisis, which you clearly in the book say, is the existential threat. why is it no one ever talks about the fact that the u. s . military is the largest emitter of fossil fuel, fossil fuel emissions? why, why does no one talk about the largest military on earth and it's emissions? i think people talk about the united states as a country. this goes back to what i described in looking at globalization and how different economies middle classes have done the united states for a long period of time, including the military, has been the largest emitter of carbon on the planet. and, and, oh, is
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a lie and share of the responsibility for fixing the issue right now. the chinese government including their military today and miss more the chinese economy. and it's more than 2. and then i tried to separate out of the u. s. military war. i'm trying to separate the want to know the tree because a country on its own, why does no one ever talk about the u. s. military emissions? because it's integrated with the u. s. economy. i mean, it's fundamentally part of the united states. g, d, p. i mean, it's not like people are spending an enormous amount of time talking about the u. s . tech sector. i mean, you do break these things down and people talk about how much comes from hard infrastructure as opposed to soft transportation infrastructure again, which includes civil military as part of it. it's both it is, i mean i think what, what people tend to do when they look at climate is the trying to get their arms around something they've been ignoring for a long time. the world understands how bad this problem presently is. they understand it for decades. economic development, including military development,
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has ignored the long term consequences for the climate. i mean, my god, i was born in 1969. and in 50 years, over 50 percent of all of the animals on the planet were gone. i mean, the biodiversity just gone staggering. the worst piece of data i've seen, it might be higher life species as well. it should be said, i'm not being a climate extinction. i just got a feeling i've just got to finish here by asking you about public private solutions to this. because as we said earlier, the greatest humanity development as being the communist party of china is a feeding of those 800000000 people, bringing them out of poverty centrally managed no matter what dang, shopping reforms were. there was so central management elements in large regions. why, again and again in your book, do you want private oligarchs, corporations, why do you want them involved?
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why not just make them all democratically accountable and have them owned by the state? like i know amtrak isn't doing that well in the united states right now, but the us post office. why not do that? instead of always try and help please all a god and big corporations trends. or if they will make it more of a big part of your problem is that the united states and china, which are the number one and number 2 most powerful government in the world are increasingly in would focus in their solutions. they're talking about national solutions. america 1st in china, 1st national champions, china's investments and dual circulation and the chinese supply chain. in chinese, domestic consumption, the americans, whether it's trumps, american 1st or biden's, u. s. foreign policy. if the american middle class, these are not global solutions. and yet, every challenge you talked about over your show as a global challenge, whether it's a pandemic, whether it's a climate crisis for the un. right? and so if you ask me the kind of responses you're going to get to the global,
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you have to go beyond just the united states and china, by the way, a lot of these solutions are public, private, but they are bigger if they're public, they're much bigger than the u. s. and china. so on climate, the, you, the european union is doing far more to set standards and to move toward sustainable renewable energy than the americans or chinese are on a global stage if that handled before before ukraine arguably. but we'll have to ask you on again to talk more about that in bye bye. thank you. and that's it for the show will be back next week with another brand new episode. but until then you can still keep in touch my role as social media. if it's not centered in your country, but you can always had to our channel going on the grantee on rumble dot com to watch new and old episodes of going on the ground to say, ah, ah,
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mom, but i know it's up a minute or a year with over $170.00 civilians have been evacuated from the city of sola dar in baton. yes, republic, as moscow confirms russian troops now fully control the city, our correspondent heard some of their stories. a ukrainian forces were using us as human shields. life was unbearable. it was very scary. the ukrainian forces were shooting constantly. our house alone was shout, 7 times. escalade and sanctions are providing weapons will only make it difficult to turn the situation around and even to provoke large scale confrontation.
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